Downtown San Jose
Downtown San Jose is the central business district of San Jose, California, in Silicon Valley. It is the largest urban center of Silicon Valley. Downtown is one of the largest tech clusters in Silicon Valley, as well as the cultural and political center of San Jose; the town was first settled in 1777. The area that now makes up downtown was first settled twenty years when the town of San Jose moved somewhat inland from its original location on the banks of the Guadalupe River. In 1850, San Jose incorporated to become California's first city and the location of California's first state capitol. Despite widespread destruction caused by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a number of neighborhoods around Downtown San Jose still retain their original, pre-1906 housing stock; these neighborhoods include the South University, Naglee Park, Hensley Historic District, Reed Historic District and Vendome neighborhoods. The downtown area was typical of a small, agriculture-based city of under 100,000 residents until city manager A. P. Hamann spearheaded aggressive expansion during the 1950s and'60s.
As the city expanded into outlying areas, the downtown area entered a period of decline. In the 1980s, mayor Tom McEnery, whose family owned several buildings in downtown, initiated significant gentrification in the area; the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, the largest such group in the state, would become a key player in revitalizing the downtown area and, to a lesser extent, surrounding neighborhoods. In some cases, historic downtown buildings were bulldozed in order to make room for new hotels, office space, museums and parks; as part of its apparent effort to stimulate economic growth and increase tax revenue within the downtown community, the San Jose Redevelopment Agency began encouraging builders to construct high-rise residential towers, the agency offered subsidies and lifted the requirement to provide affordable units that were characteristic of other redevelopment projects throughout the city. The agency’s master plan has incorporated high-rise condominiums since 1980. In 2008, the city’s first high-rise project began selling units.
Construction or planning has begun on at least seven additional high-rise projects. The agency states the high-rises will contribute to the creation of a more vibrant and well-to-do downtown culture. Many of the 19th century buildings in central downtown appear on the National Register of Historic Places, in particular the area surrounding St. James Park, such as Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. Downtown San Jose's early 20th century housing is diverse and includes many smaller Victorian homes along with a few large gingerbread or Italianate-style Victorians, Craftsman and California Bungalow architecture in the neighborhoods surrounding the downtown core. Downtown is home to many of the city's landmarks, including the San Jose Museum of Art, the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose, the Tech Museum of Innovation, the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, the San Jose Repertory Theatre, the San Jose Stage Company, the historic De Anza Hotel, the Fairmont Hotel, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph, the campus of San Jose State University and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library.
The SAP Center, just west of Guadalupe Parkway, is normally considered to be part of the downtown community. Downtown is a major tech cluster in Silicon Valley, it is home to Adobe World Headquarters, BEA Systems HQ, numerous facilities and offices of major tech companies, including Amazon Lab126 and Google. The Bay Area's largest news organization, the Mercury News is headquartered on St. James Park. Downtown San Jose has a large concentration of hotels and hospitality services in San Jose, including The Westin San Jose, the Hilton San Jose, Marriott San Jose, Sheraton San Jose concentrated near the San Jose Convention Center. In February 2018, San Jose's city council approved a stage of a sale of downtown property to Google for $67 million. Downtown is home to several important network service providers and Internet service providers, many of them located in Market Post Tower. Although the cost of office and technical space is high downtown, this is offset by the low cost of peering and internetworking, an effect of proximity to other networking companies.
Many of the public areas of downtown San Jose are covered by a public, free, Wi-Fi network, including the areas surrounding Plaza de César Chávez and San Pedro Square. Downtown is the hub of the VTA's light rail system, the home of the main campus of San Jose State University; the downtown residential area consisted of Caucasian residents through the mid-twentieth century. A notable exception was the Northside Neighborhood, where ethnic minority groups were invited to establish their homes and live their lives freely. With a vibrant African-American community and a Chinatown that grew into today's Japantown, San Jose's Northside welcomed everyone and helped to form the inclusive and vibrant downtown San Jose community of today. Downtown San Jose is home to the campus of San Jose State University. SJSU is the founding campus of the California State University system and the oldest public university on the west coast of the United States. SJSU enrolls 31,000 students; the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, shared by the city of San Jose and San Jose State University, is located on the campus of San Jose State University in downtown San Jose.
The King Library represents the first collaboration of its kind between a university and a major U. S. city, has won numerous awards including the Library Journal's prestigious 2004 Library of the Year award, the publication’s highest honor. The library first opened its doors in 200
Santa Cruz Mountains
The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco, they separate the Pacific Ocean from the San Francisco Bay and the Santa Clara Valley, continue south to the Central Coast, bordering Monterey Bay and ending at the Salinas Valley. The range passes through the counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey, with the Pajaro River forming the southern boundary; the northernmost portion of the Santa Cruz Mountains, north of Half Moon Bay Road, is known as Montara Mountain. The highest point in the range is Loma Prieta Peak, 11 miles west of Morgan Hill, with a height of 3,786 feet, near, the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Other major peaks include Mount Umunhum at 3,486 feet, Mount Thayer at 3,479 feet, Mount Bielawski at 3,231 feet, El Sombroso at 2,999 feet, Eagle Rock at 2,488 feet, Black Mountain at 2,800 feet, Sierra Morena at 2,417 feet.
The San Andreas Fault runs near the ridge line throughout the range. The interior east side of the mountains drops abruptly towards this fault line near the towns of Woodside and Saratoga. For much of the San Francisco Peninsula, State Route 35 runs along the ridge, is known as "Skyline Boulevard", while Interstate 280 runs east of the ridges; the major routes across the mountains are: SR 92 from Half Moon Bay to San Mateo, SR 84 from San Gregorio to Redwood City, SR 9 from Santa Cruz to Saratoga, SR 17 from Santa Cruz to Los Gatos, SR 152 from Watsonville to Gilroy, SR 129 from Watsonville to San Juan Bautista, US Highway 101 from Salinas to Gilroy. Meanwhile, SR 1 runs parallel to the mountains from Daly City to Castroville while SR 85 runs parallel from Cupertino to San Jose. There are over 30 wineries located in this region and the Santa Cruz Mountains have been a defined American Viticultural Area since 1981. Wine has been produced there since at least the 1840s; the Santa Cruz Mountain AVA has emerged as premier producer of top wines as recognized in the historic Judgment of Paris wine competition on May 26, 1976.
The Santa Cruz Mountains are the result of compressive uplift caused by a leftward bend of the San Andreas Fault. The Salinian Block basement rocks are overlain by Miocene rock strata of the Lompico Sandstone, the Vaqueros Sandstone and the Santa Margarita Formation; the Santa Cruz Mountains are a region of great biological diversity, encompassing cool, moist coastal ecosystems as well as warm, dry chaparral. Much of the area in the Santa Cruz mountains is considered temperate rainforest. In valleys and moist ocean-facing slopes some of the southernmost coast redwoods grow, along with coast Douglas-fir. coast live oak, Pacific madrone, Pacific wax myrtle, big leaf maple, California bay laurel, California black oak occur in the Santa Cruz Mountains. There do exist several small and isolated stands of old-growth forest, most notably at Henry Cowell Redwoods and Portola Redwoods State Parks and one sizeable old-growth redwood forest at Big Basin. At higher elevations and on sunny south slopes a more drought-resistant chaparral vegetation dominates: manzanita, California scrub oak and chaparral pea.
Spring wildflowers are widespread throughout the range. The area welcomes a tremendous number of species of birds.. Black-tailed deer, a subspecies of mule deer are common, as are western gray squirrels and raccoons. Periodic sightings of black bears indicate they frequent the mountains or wander north from Big Sur, where black bears are established. Foxes, bobcats and human-introduced Virginia opossums inhabit the region but are seen. Rattlesnakes are inhabitants in the high, dry chaparral; the Santa Cruz Mountains have a Mediterranean type climate typical of most of California, with the majority of the annual precipitation falling between November and April. According to the National Weather Service, this totals more than 50 inches annually. Heavy summer fogs cover the western ocean-facing slopes and valleys, resulting in drizzle and fog drip caused by condensation on the redwoods and other trees, which sustains the moisture-loving redwood forests. Due to a rain shadow effect, precipitation on the eastern side of the range is less, about 25 inches a year.
Snow falls a few times a year on the highest ridges, more the higher valleys receive light dustings. The National Weather Service's cooperative weather stations in the mountains have included Black Mountain 2WSW – average annual rainfall 36.65 inches, maximum annual rainfall 80.66 inches, average annual snowfall 0.7-inch, maximum annual snowfall 8.0 inches. No temperature records were kept at these stations; the Santa Cruz Mountains are subject to sharp diurnal temperature fluctuations. The highs and low within a 24-hour period are ~20–30 °F apart on average but can be as much as 50 °F apart during heat waves depending on location. There is con
Mayor of San Jose
The Mayor of San Jose the Mayor of the City of San José, is executive of the Government of the City of San Jose. The mayor presides over the San Jose City Council, composed of 11 voting members, including the mayor. While the mayor is the head of the city council, he or she has no veto powers over legislation passed by the Council, as the city uses a council-manager form of government; the mayor is limited to two successive terms. There are 65 people; the current mayor is Democrat Sam Liccardo, who took office in January 2015 and was elected with 50.76% of the popular vote. Spanish rule Jose Manuel Gonzales, Alcalde of San Jose 1785-1789 Ignacio Archuleta, Alcalde of San Jose 1803–? Mexican rule: Antonio Suñol, Alcalde of San Jose 1841–? Pedro Chabolla, Alcalde of San Jose 1845 Antonio Maria Pico, Alcalde of San Jose 1845–1846 Dolores Pacheco, Alcalde of San Jose 1846 John Burton, Alcalde of San Jose 1846–1847 First Alcalde H. K. Dimmick First Alcalde Richard M. May First Alcalde John C. Conroy Before 1967, mayors of San Jose were elected by the San Jose City Council.
Josiah Belden 1850–1851 Thomas White 1851–1854 O. H. Allen 1854–1855 Sherman Otis Houghton 1855–1856 Lawrence Archer 1856 John M. Murphy 1856 George Givens 1856–1857 Ranson G. Moody 1857–1858 Peter O. Minor 1858–1859 Thomas Fallon 1859–1860 Richard B. Buckner 1860–1861 Joseph W. Johnson 1861–1863 John Alonzo Quinby 1863–1868 Mark Leavenworth 1868–1870 Adolph Pfister 1870–1873 Bernard D. Murphy 1873–1877 George B. McKee 1877–1878 Lawrence Archer 1878–1880 Bernard D. Murphy 1880–1882 Charles J. Martin 1882–1884 Campbell Thompson Settle 1884–1886 Charles W. Breyfogle 1886–1887 Samuel Watson Boring 1887–1890 Samuel N. Rucker 1890–1894 Paul P. Austin 1894–1896 Valentine Koch 1896–1898 Charles J. Martin 1898–1902 George D. Worswick 1902–1906 Henry D. Mathews 1906–1908 Charles W. Davison 1908–1910 Thomas Monahan 1910–1914 Fred R. Husted 1914–1916 Elmer E. Chase 1916–1918 1 Charles M. O'Brian 1918–1920 Albert C. Jayet 1920–1922 M. E. Arnerich 1922–1924 Joseph T. Brooks 1924–1926 Dan W. Gray 1926–1928 Fred Doerr 1928–1930 W. L. Biebrach 1930–1932 A. M. Meyer 1932–1934 Charles Bishop 1934–1936 Richard French 1936–1938 Clyde L. Fischer 1938–1940 Harry Young 1940–1944 Earl Campbell 1944–1945 Ernest E. Renzel 1945–1946 Albert J. Ruffo 1946–1948 Fred Watson 1948–1950 Clark L. Bradley 1950–1952 Parker Hathaway 1952–1954 George Starbird 1954–1956 Robert Doerr 1956–1958 Louis Solari 1958–1960 Paul Moore 1960–1962 Robert Welch 1962–1964 Joseph L. Pace 1964–1967 Since 1967, San Jose has elected its mayors by a popular vote.
Due to state laws regarding primary elections, political parties cannot nominate candidates for mayor, although candidates choose to identify with a party. All registered candidates, regardless of party affiliation, compete in an vote held in June of the election year. If no person gets over 50% of the popular vote, the top two candidates automatically move to a runoff election. All elected mayors of San Jose have been members of the Democratic Party; the first elected mayor was Ron James and the first female mayor was Janet Gray Hayes. Many mayors of San Jose have either served in other public offices or been influential in the private sector following their tenures. Norman Y. Mineta subsequently became a congressman, U. S. Secretary of Commerce and U. S. Secretary of Transportation. After his terms, Tom McEnery has served on the Board of Directors of the San Jose Sharks and founded the Irish Innovation Center and Silicon Valley Global, two downtown-based groups that fund and house Silicon Valley startups.
The following is a list of statewide or federal public offices held by mayors before or after their term. Timeline of San Jose, California Arbuckle, Clyde. Chase and all following mayors are the president of the city council
San Jose, California
San Jose the City of San José, is an economic and political center of Silicon Valley, the largest city in Northern California. With an estimated 2017 population of 1,035,317, it is the third-most populous city in California and the tenth-most populous in United States. Located in the center of the Santa Clara Valley, on the southern shore of San Francisco Bay, San Jose covers an area of 179.97 square miles. San Jose is the county seat of Santa Clara County, the most affluent county in California and one of the most affluent counties in the United States. San Jose is the most populous city in both the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area, which contain 7.7 million and 8.7 million people respectively. San Jose is a global city, notable as a center of innovation, for its affluence, Mediterranean climate, high cost of living. San Jose's location within the booming high tech industry, as a cultural and economic center has earned the city the nickname "Capital of Silicon Valley".
San Jose is one of the wealthiest major cities in the United States and the world, has the third highest GDP per capita in the world, according to the Brookings Institution. The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the most millionaires and the most billionaires in the United States per capita. With a median home price of $1,085,000, San Jose has the most expensive housing market in the country and the fifth most expensive housing market in the world, according to the 2017 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey. Major global tech companies including Cisco Systems, eBay, Adobe Systems, PayPal, Samsung, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Western Digital maintain their headquarters in San Jose, in the center of Silicon Valley. Before the arrival of the Spanish, the area around San Jose was inhabited by the Tamien nation of the Ohlone peoples of California. San Jose was founded on November 29, 1777, as the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, the first city founded in the Californias, it became a part of Mexico in 1821 after the Mexican War of Independence.
Following the American Conquest of California during the Mexican–American War, the territory was ceded to the United States in 1848. After California achieved statehood two years San Jose became the state's first capital. Following World War II, San Jose experienced an economic boom, with a rapid population growth and aggressive annexation of nearby cities and communities carried out in the 1950s and 1960s; the rapid growth of the high-technology and electronics industries further accelerated the transition from an agricultural center to an urbanized metropolitan area. Results of the 1990 U. S. Census indicated that San Jose had surpassed San Francisco as the most populous city in Northern California. By the 1990s, San Jose and the rest of Silicon Valley had become the global center for the high tech and internet industries, making it California's fastest-growing economy; the Santa Clara Valley has been home to the Tamyen group of the Ohlone people since around 4,000 BCE. The Tamyen spoke Tamyen language of the Ohlone language family.
With the Spanish colonization of California, the majority of the Tamyen came to inhabit Mission Santa Clara de Asís and Mission San José. California was claimed as part of the Spanish Empire in 1542, when explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo charted the Californian coast. During this time and Baja California were administered together as Province of the California. For nearly 200 years, the Californias were sparsely populated and ignored by the government of the Viceroyalty of New Spain in Mexico City. Only in 1769 was Northern California surveyed by Spanish authorities, with the Portolá Expedition. In 1776, the Californias were included as part of the Captaincy General of the Provincias Internas, a large administrative division created by José de Gálvez, Spanish Minister of the Indies, in order to provide greater autonomy for the Spanish Empire's populated and ungoverned borderlands; that year, King Carlos III of Spain approved an expedition by Juan Bautista de Anza to survey the San Francisco Bay Area, in order to choose the sites for two future settlements and their accompanying mission.
First he chose the site for a military settlement in San Francisco, for the Royal Presidio of San Francisco, Mission San Francisco de Asís. On his way back to Mexico from San Francisco, de Anza chose the sites in Santa Clara Valley for a civilian settlement, San Jose, on the eastern bank of the Guadalupe River, a mission on its western bank, Mission Santa Clara de Asís. San Jose was founded as California's first civilian settlement on November 29, 1777, as the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe by José Joaquín Moraga, under orders of Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa, Viceroy of New Spain. San Jose served as a strategic settlement along El Camino Real, connecting the military fortifications at the Monterey Presidio and the San Francisco Presidio, as well as the California mission network. In 1791, due to the severe flooding which characterized the pueblo, San Jose's settlement was moved a mile south, centered on the Pueblo Plaza. In 1800, due to the growing population in the northern part of the Californias, Diego de Borica, Governor of the Californias split the province into two parts: Alta California, which would become a U.
S. state, Baja California, which would become two Mexican states. San Jose became part of the First M
Janet Gray Hayes
Janet Gray Hayes was the 60th mayor of San Jose, elected to two consecutive, four-year terms from 1975 to 1983. She was both the first woman to be elected mayor San Jose, the first woman elected mayor of a major U. S. city with a population of more than 500,000 people. Born in Rushville, Hayes went to University of Chicago and received her bachelor's degree from Indiana University. In 1956, Hayes and her husband moved to California where her husband practiced medicine. Hayes was a Democrat, she died of a stroke on April 26, 2014 in Saratoga, California
Albert J. Ruffo
Albert J. Ruffo was an American politician, educator and football coach. Ruffo grew up in Washington. In 1927 he moved to San Jose, California to attend nearby Santa Clara University, where he played football, graduated with degrees in political science, electrical engineering, literature. After graduating in 1931, Ruffo taught in the university's school of engineering and coached the freshman football team to help pay for attending law school. In 1936 he graduated at the head of his class from Santa Clara University School of Law. After passing the bar exam, he continued to coach football with the university as the assistant varsity coach under legendary SCU head coach Lawrence T. "Buck" Shaw and helped lead the team to victory in the 1937 and 1938 Sugar Bowls against LSU. In San Francisco, Ruffo and a former college football teammate, Tony Morabito, became partners in a lumber delivery business, but Morabito soon began to focus on starting a pro football franchise and Ruffo was enlisted to set up the legal framework for what was to become Morabito's San Francisco 49ers, who began play in the All-America Football Conference in 1946.
While waiting for the 49ers' first season of operation Buck Shaw and Ruffo spent the 1945 season as Head Coach and Assistant for the University of California Golden Bears. He was an assistant coach to Buck Shaw for the 49ers first two years of operation, which happened to be while he was serving as mayor of San Jose, California, he became a part owner of the team and remained so for 24 years until it was sold to Eddie DeBartolo, Jr. in 1977. He served eight years on the San Jose city council, was the city's 48th mayor from 1946 to 1948. During his time on the council, A. P. Hamann, another of Ruffo's teammates at Santa Clara, was hired as city manager and the rapid growth of San Jose began. After leaving public office, Ruffo worked as an attorney. A 1979 San Jose State University study ranked Ruffo as one of the 10 most powerful people in San Jose. In 1997, he was inducted into the Santa Clara County Sports Hall of Fame. Ruffo filed a lawsuit in 1998 against San Jose's new leaders to stop them from using redevelopment funds to build a new city hall.
In 2001, he won a state appeals court ruling on the case. Al Ruffo Was Present 50 Years Ago At 49Ers' Birth Past and Present Leadership of The California State University Santa Clara University Alumni - Ignatian Award Honorees Junior Achievement Hall of Fame at the Wayback Machine Feng City San Francisco Chronicle obituary Little Italy San Jose - Al Ruffo Banner
Fred Doerr
Frederick Doerr was an American politician who served as the 39th Mayor of San Jose, from 1928 to 1930. He was a member of the San Jose City Council. Doerr was born in the son of German emigrants Charles Doerr and Minna Bertelsman, his son, Robert Doerr served as the city's mayor from 1956 until 1958
